An offer of a new Golf for €1,270 less than the previous model has been prompting conversation at the Paris Autosalon show. “The car is not even at the dealerships, but the reduction is already there,” Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, an industry analyst, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

He said other car makers would be asking themselves, if the beloved Golf cannot be moved without special offers, how can others sell their cars?

But VW said the offer only applied to online sales where the lower price could be compensated for in other areas.

Opel is also offering reductions, despite large losses, and the opposition in principle, of the company’s head Alfred Rieck who told the specialist magazine Horizont recently, “One should not and cannot go along with everything.” He was not a friend of price wars as they “destroy the value of the brand and also of the car,” he said.

But the Süddeutsche Zeitung said car makers were fighting for a market in Europe that has already started to shrink – from an annual sale of around 15 million a few years ago to less than 12 million now.

Even Daimler recently announced a large savings programme, the paper said, which industry insiders say should save around €1 billion a year after CEO Dieter Zetsche said the €5 billion profit levels of two years ago were not feasible this year.

The producers face a dilemma, the paper said – if they sell their cars cheaply now, it will be difficult to increase prices when the economy picks up. Those firms which can afford it are not taking part in the price war – but some cannot avoid it, leading Fiat head Sergio Marchionne to speak of a bloodbath last summer.

Police in Bremen said that the risk of a terrorist attack had been reduced in the city after they arrested two suspected arms dealers. The city remains under high alert, with special protection for the Jewish community.
READ

An estimated 375 people turned out for the Germany-based PEGIDA movement's first demonstration in Britain on Saturday, but were outnumbered by a 2,000-strong crowd of counter-protesters, police said.
READ

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko declared the killing of three government troops by pro Moscow rebels a "serious breach of the ceasefire", during a telephone call Friday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, her office said.
READ

Germany's highest civil court ruled in favour of a man who swapped the carpet in his new apartment for parquet flooring, incurring the wrath of the retired couple who lived below him over his loud footsteps.
READ

Teachers all over the country are expected to stike starting Monday, German education trade union GEW said, after negotiations with the wage commission of the federal states (TdL) failed to achieve results.
READ

Andre Shepherd at the European Court of Justice in June 2014. Photo: DPA

American soldier Andre Shepherd, who applied for asylum in Germany as a conscientious objector against the war in Iraq after going AWOL from his unit, saw a judgement by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) go against him on Thursday.
READ